Monday, November 8, 2010

kolbergs's levels and Stages of moral development

Kohlberg's believes that there is three levels of moral development Pre-conventional, Conventional, and Post Conventional with two stages at each level. A key point of Kohlberg's theory is internalization the change from behavior that is externally controlled to internally controlled. In the pre-conventional stage the child has not yet obtained conventional thinking moral reason is controlled by an external rewards and punishments examples of this would be being rewarded by getting a cookie or being given a timeout for not listening. The Conventinal stage internalization is intermediate, but essentially the standards are imposed by other people such as parents or society, example of this would be trying to uphold a reputation like good girl, good boy; the other side would be law and order (following rules). The last stage post-conventional morality is completely internalized and not based on external standards, Includes social contract such as unwrittern agreements and rules and universal ethical examples would be Martin Luther King, Jesus.

I think that Kolberg's theory is a template for moral development but believe that we can be in many stages at one point in time for many people they know what is right and wrong but need that external reward or law and order to insure they do the right thing. There is also certain situations where a person knows that there are certain rules, but reason beyond their control they also believe that doing the opposite would also be accepted. Moral reasoning is different in every situation,culture, and between genders which makes it difficult to classify